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Mushroom Gravy
¼ lb. chopped mushrooms I heaping teaspoonful flour Salt and pepper 1 slice onion 1/2 pint (I cup) water 1 tablespoonful mushroom ketchup I oz. (1 heaping tablespoonful) butter Salt and pepper to taste 1/4 teaspoonful meat extract Fry the mushrooms, onion, and the flour in the butter in a fireproof dish for a few minutes, add the seasonings, meat extract, mushroom ketchup, and the water; boil for eight minutes, stirring occasionally, and serve. If preferred, the mushrooms can be rubbed through a sieve to press out all the juice; they can then be reheated and served. 4 onions Salt and pepper
A quick brown mushroom sauce built in one pan, from the era when "casserole" meant a flameproof earthenware or enamelled dish used directly over heat. It is a small quantity, enough to sauce a dish for four.
- The quantity of mushroomsThe figure as printed has lost its fraction; the likeliest reading is 1/4 lb (about 4 oz, or roughly 1 1/2 cups chopped), though the original fraction cannot be recovered with certainty.
- VesselA "fireproof dish" here is a flameproof casserole set on the burner, not something baked. Any heavy saucepan or small enamelled cast-iron pot works.
- UnitsHalf a pint is one cup, as the original notes. One ounce of butter is two tablespoons by modern measure, though the recipe's "heaping tablespoonful" suggests it was scooped rather than weighed.
- Meat extractThis means Bovril or a similar concentrated beef extract. A quarter teaspoon of beef extract (yeast extract at a stretch) gives comparable savoury depth.
- Mushroom ketchupA thin, dark, salty mushroom-and-spice infusion, not a tomato product. Still sold by some British makers; a tablespoon of soy sauce plus a few drops of Worcestershire is the nearest substitute, and adjust salt afterwards.
- Brown the mushrooms firstThe recipe frying mushrooms, onion and flour together "for a few minutes" is the hinge. Give the mushrooms enough time and heat to release their water and start to colour before the flour goes in, or the gravy tastes raw and pale.
- The eight-minute boilWith only a heaping teaspoon of flour to a cup of water this is a thin gravy, and the boil is what cooks out the flour taste. If you want it thicker, reduce further rather than adding more flour.
- Seasoning orderSalt and pepper appear twice in the ingredient list. Season lightly at the frying stage and correct at the end, once the extract and ketchup have gone in, since both are salty.
Mushroom ketchup, called for here as a matter of course, was a British store-cupboard staple long before tomato ketchup displaced it: mushrooms salted, pressed and spiced into a dark liquid seasoning used much as cooks now use soy or Worcestershire. Paired with a spoonful of bottled meat extract, it shows how thoroughly the early twentieth-century kitchen relied on commercial concentrates to build savoury flavour quickly, a habit that grew alongside the branded grocery trade of the late 1800s.